Il Ponte dei Sospiri

In a surprise move, they decided at the last minute to keep the English title and translate it back into Italian (the English title, of course, is a translation from Italian). This was after a number of title changes planned to imitate the French edition’s insistence on using the word comrade in each title—an idea I was never very hot on. But in the end it’s suspected that the word “comrade” in the French edition (Cher Camarade) injured its marketability, and so the Italians went with the original.

Titles, in my limited experience, are pretty flexible—particularly once you’ve sold a book to another country. And it’s encouraging to see the Italian go back to Il Ponte dei Sospiri.